For a second year in a row a Dale Coyne Racing rookie was bumped out of the Indianapolis 500 field as Jacob Abel lost a spectacular and enthralling battle with team-mate Rinus VeeKay to make the race on Bump Day.
With Marco Andretti and Marcus Armstrong seemingly clear with their first runs of last chance qualifying, as was the case in 2023 when two Rahal Letterman Lanigan drivers were trying to knock each other out so this time it was last year's victim Coyne with two cars fighting for the last spot in the race.
VeeKay, who is driving for Coyne at the Indy 500 for the first time and has three front-row starts from five attempts (and a worst previous start of seventh), scraped through initially in 33rd with his rookie team-mate Abel on the outside looking in.
"We lost like so much speed from Friday night to Saturday morning," said Abel prior to qualifying. "We have way less downforce now than we were then and even Saturday morning we were still pretty quick.
"Super, super strange, just mysterious loss of speed."
Abel had to wait for his car to cool, and even went out and did one lap at slow speed to try to get air through the car to cool it further before going straight back out for a second run.
Typically because of the power output at Indianapolis you can't do back-to-back runs without cooling the engine; if you do it can lack significant performance.
Abel looked set to wait to do his run until the last moment to have the chance to make the field and stop VeeKay from getting a shot at another run.
Not wanting to allow that, VeeKay withdrew his time - a massive risk if he went slower or made a mistake - to beat Abel out onto the track for one final run.
But VeeKay's run was massively slower, from a 227.740mph average to a 226.913mph or 0.5761s, opening the door for Abel. His first run had been faster than VeeKay's second, too, but that one was forfeited as Abel was out of the top 33 at that stage.
"Have you ever played chess with yourself?" smiled Dale Coyne, explaining the move to run VeeKay again, pointing to each team knowing the other's strategies and wanting them both to get a fair chance.
With just over a minute to go Abel began his run, but his run was also slower, massively bailing out VeeKay.
The run was a 226.394mph average, condemning a car with a livery dedicated to Danny Sullivan's miraculous 1985 spin-and-win victory over Mario Andretti. There would be no miracle for Abel.
"I feel relief but not real happiness," said a sombre VeeKay, who later embraced Abel with a hug. "I feel bad for him."
Last year it was Nolan Siegel - who went on to land a plum seat at McLaren later in the season - who was bumped for Coyne.
Andretti’s first run being the quickest meant three cars would have to improve within the final 40 or so minutes, which was almost impossible.
“I think tomorrow is ours to lose,” he had said on Saturday evening, and so it proved as the 2020 polesitter will start 31st in his bid to take a first win.
The day before, Andretti had been 0.0028s short over four laps and 10 miles of avoiding Last Chance Qualifying and making the field automatically
Marcus Armstrong had to watch his team-mate Felix Rosenqvist fight for pole while he took 32nd, but that was mostly down to Armstrong's Saturday morning practice crash - one that destroyed his primary car.
His team hastily threw together his Detroit street course car as a back-up machine, which has at least allowed him to qualify.
It says a lot about Coyne's struggles that two practice cars, for Armstrong and Saturday qualifier Colton Herta, made it through to the event well ahead of its entries.
The Fast Six fight for pole follows the last chance qualifying session.
Confirmed Indy 500 starting positions so far
7 David Malukas
8 Christian Lundgaard
9 Marcus Ericsson
10 Scott McLaughlin
11 Josef Newgarden
12 Will Power
13 Conor Daly
14 Alexander Rossi
15 Kyffin Simpson
16 Ed Carpenter
17 Santino Ferrucci
18 Devlin DeFrancesco
19 Sting Ray Robb
20 Christian Rasmussen
21 Kyle Larson
22 Louis Foster
23 Callum Ilott
24 Helio Castroneves
25 Kyle Kirkwood
26 Nolan Siegel
27 Ryan Hunter-Reay
28 Jack Harvey
29 Colton Herta
30 Graham Rahal
31 Marco Andretti
32 Marcus Armstrong
33 Rinus VeeKay
Bumped out of the event: Jacob Abel
